Monday, 27 December 2010

Hello, good evening and welcome to the subversive, lunacy tinged mischief of the Yes Men and their twinkling mission to fix the world. We love our inventive activists here at LSD and have a massive soft spot for complete nutters, and these two anti corporate reprobates combine the two beautifully. Having made two films that document their extraordinary stunts, they set up fake websites purporting to represent some of capitalism’s most shameless offenders, pursue any offers of the oxygen of publicity sent to those ‘organisations’, and proceed to reshape their despicable policies in the full glare of the public eye, raising not only awareness of the issues, but the spectre of those companies having to come out and deny everything, thus reiterating their complete lack of morality to the world. From announcing 12 billion dollars of compensation to the victims of Bhopal live on the BBC on behalf of Dow Chemicals, to unveiling human corpses as the solution to the worlds energy crisis...

Tell us a little about your background in political activism and what inspired you to start the Yes Men.

Well it all kind of happened by accident. We were already working on what you could call an anti-corporate corporation and we ran a thing called RTmark.com where we were trying to put together people with the resources they needed to carry out subversive projects - match making them with people with ideas and sometimes people with money. In the course of doing that, Andy started making fake websites including one for the World Trade Organisation that were so satirical, we expected people to look at them and laugh. In fact though, some people would go to them and having had such a hard time contacting say, WTO representatives through the real site, on finding the contact button on ours, they would email us thinking that we were the real thing. We had been dong that for a while and received a few invitations before we realised that we could follow up on them to participate in the conferences they were asking us to attend.

So you get an invite, you RSVP, and what – you just swan in?

Yeah that’s pretty much it! I mean over the years things have grown more elaborate but the first time round we fully expected to be thrown out, and when we weren’t and people were ready to accept the dark satire that we were indulging in as gospel, it was so surprising and weird that we decided to stick with it. We kept on with actions in that vein, impersonating the WTO and then expanding into many other wrong doers, big corporations and governments for the last decade now.

How do you judge the line between exposing how absurd their policies are through an even more absurd satiric announcement and being credible enough to not get kicked off the stage within the first 30 seconds.

Strangely, we started being very careful about that and tried to ramp up the talk very slowly and not say anything outrageous for a while - sort of lulling the audience into it. Thing was, before long, we found out that there was basically nothing that we couldn’t say in that context because people had so much respect for us and people do tend to trust authority and avoid rocking the boat. They’re in a situation where they are supposed to meet the most important person in the room and get their business card and since we were supposedly the most important people in the room we were the target for everybody to come up, get the business card, meet us and shake our hands, so we had license to say anything and people didn’t respond negatively. Consequently, as the years passed, we really just stopped paying attention to how subtle we had to be.

Were you amazed watching the herd mentality in action as people just swallowed this with very little sense of irony?

We were surprised at first, but then we came to understand that this was human nature and of course it reflects on what’s going on in the world. Think about it, how can we accept things like climate change and continue with business as usual despite the fact that we know that it’s going to kill us or if not in our lifetime, it’s certainly going to be killing a lot of us a few generations down the line. Right now it’s just killing “other” people far away - 300,000 people a year now according to the UN. But knowing that it’s destroying us why do we keep doing it? I think that this realityof people sitting back and not responding is related to that and of course it’s been tested in laboratory experiments, there’s the famous Milgram experiments and a number of others concerning human behavior whether it’s about group dynamics or deference to authority. People are easily manipulated and in many ways, we have what I would call ‘vulnerabilities to reason’, our reason has vulnerabilities where something else kicks in and we stop using that kind of reason.

Why do you think that freedom and capitalism are considered one and the same, especially in the USA?

Well there is one very specific explanation, and that is that a small clutch of ideologically driven people who have a lot of money, have put a tonne of it into that way of seeing the world. That’s one answer, and it’s no accident that these massive lobbying organisations like the US Chamber of Commerce who lobby hard for no regulation, the interests of business and that conception, that idea that human freedom is somehow connected or is in fact the same thing as economic licence. Obviously they’re not, and anybody should be able to see that, but that’s of course not the way it’s gone. It’s clear whose interest it serves - eventually there is an end game to all of this and it’s going to have to change, because you can’t just keep on having unfettered growth. Capitalism is a machine that will destroy itself given enough time and given enough rope and you’d just hope that it doesn’t destroy us all with it.

Is heisting a piece of art a work of art in itself? Those are the blurred lines prankster, mischief maker, artist, jump-suited nutter and all round shadowy doer of mayhem AK 47 is out to cross, then reverse and cross over again. Infallibly controversial, from his light fingered lifting of Banksy’s Drinker which led him straight to the still smoldering Bonfire of the Momart Vanities to nicking Tracey Emin’s latest slice of drivel, he has opened questions about ownership, value, and the flexibility of the concept of conceptual art. An artist in his own right in between court appearances for exhibiting live firearms, we caught up with AK himself for a quick word...

How did you get involved in the street art scene?

As a kid I used to do a lot of tagging when I was about 17/18. This was in 1974, before anybody knew of the term tagging or knew what it was. I used to write ‘linky ok’, the ‘ok’ was a bit like a ‘@’ sign with the ‘k’ inside the ‘o’. I got arrested for criminal damage on a local bus shelter and while in the cells I dug into the old plaster wall in huge letters, ‘linky OK’ which made my not guilty plea to the shelter damage impossible.

You made headlines when you kidnapped a Banksy piece in the west end of London called The Drinker. What made you lift the piece in the first place?

As a joke and because I knew I could, I knew nobody else would have thought of doing it How did you go about taking The Drinker and where exactly did you take it? I hired a lorry with driver from a friend’s garage in mid-afternoon, went down and removed it from the back of Tottenham Court Road. We drove the piece off blindfolded so he couldn’t see where he was going. Haha. We took it to a friend’s squatted warehouse in Dalston, just off Kingsland road. Did Banksy see the funny side of the stunt? I don’t know, I hope so. I know his manager Steve Lazarides didn’t.

We’ve watched YouTube videos showing you and the lads pretending to blow the piece up with fireworks but what did you really have planned for the piece?

I wanted to swap it for a Banksy original canvas. I mean, I did get him his first broadsheet front cover, a PR dream. I was even contacted by the Guardian’s legal team and made to sign an affidavit that I was nothing to do with Banksy or Pictures on Walls and that this was not a publicity stunt arranged by him. This PR alone was worth a piece. When I sent him the ransom note he offered me the money to buy a gallon of petrol to burn it, and I said I would gladly do that if he gave me a can of petrol that he signed. I was, and still am a massive fan and couldn’t really afford one of his pieces.

Sunday, 26 December 2010

Belgian artist Resto has been taking the flatland's by storm with his gargantuan dreamscape of lovingly warped, modern mythic wonder. Rippling with vibrant colour, he dances through styles from letters to questionably attired giants and has become notorious for the sheer scale and epic nature of so much of his work - often in collaboration with ROA. A wink and a comedic nudge infuse so many of his characters, yet always tempered with a deep compassion that brings his gorillas, his giants, and his lunatic living machines into the realms of empathic humanity. Steeped in the phantasmagoric tradition of the surreal from El Greco to the present day, he has carved his own identity into the industrial landscape of the modernity as his characters and his paintings plaster a warm, loving smile over all of our faces. We spoke to him.

How long have you been painting walls?

My first spray can works date from around ‘96, my first illegal piece must have been 50cm by 50cm hahaha the more serious work came about a year later.

Are you formally trained or did you shoot from the hip?

I got an education at the Academie of Fine Arts in Gent, etchings, linocuts and silkscreenprinting was my master. Allthough I can’t say that helped me a lot.. whether this was my fault or the teachers... who will say. All I know is that I am far more happy now doing my own stuff than back then when teachers told me this or that is not art. If that’s what you mean.

Scale and colour seem to be your signature, when did you decide to paint such large colourful pieces?

After I got kind of bored of always painting five letter pieces of the same height and length I guess.

Do you enjoy painting letters as much as painting characters?

Allthough I kind of got bored doing only letterpieces, I can still enjoy it. I’ve always liked the typographic part of graffiti, that’s what kind of got me into it. But O my god how many times can one repeat the same letter without getting bored with it. Before I actually used to switch names quite often just because I got bored with the letters. A lot depends on the wall and who I am with but in general I enjoy more and more drawing on walls (wherein letters can be involved). The bottom line is: Tags and simple pieces for quick enjoyment, characters and muraldrawings for bigger projects and a longer effect of enjoyment..

How long does it take to paint those large walls?

It depends on how big the wall is, so mostly the job is done in one day. (What can be a long day...) About twelve hours must be the longest I’ve worked on one piece, although I can’t wait to go bigger.

What or who influences your designs most?

That’s a hard one, so much people do, every day new things influence me. I am not a person who tends to keep to one style or technique, because I usually get bored of it very fast. But I could say people close to me influence me, my daily collaborators, crew members and co, and the there are about a million artists I look up to, from El Greco, Bosch, to Schiele, Paul Klee,... Phillip Guston, Jean Spezial are great friends and I think their work is amazing, together with lots of todays illustrators, some of Gents greatest talents, Pointdexter, Bue,...and so much more, not to forget Blu, EricaelCane, Honet, Horfé... Mostly I get my influences from people who make illustrative stuff with great detail.

How do people respond to your work in the city?

I must say we kind of built up a good vibe in the city towards graffiti/street art approaching it from a different angle. Asking people if you can paint their wall can be much more rewarding than just doing some

Slamming deep into the LSD mix rides the one, the only, Executioner, Mr Andy C. From his early years carving old skool hardcore classics out of a tape machine and an electric current of lifelong inspiration, Andy has systematically revolutionised drum n bass again and again, keeping it rushing forward on the front foot, tearing down the barriers in its path and hurling its pulsating energy at ever wider audiences. RAM Records, the label that he started with his old family friend Ant Miles has grown into an institutional powerhouse of next level creativity, rampaging basslines and an artist roster that virtually defines drum n bass itself, shaping the movement and guaranteeing its permanency in the hearts of millions...

How did you first hit the scene, start getting on a set of decks and thinking about production?

To be honest, the production came before the DJing. When I was still a pretty young lad, a family friend of ours, Ant Miles had a setup and I would go round his house after school to try my hand, and with his support and encouragement, I began learning how to make music. As I was starting to really get the hang of it, by complete chance, I met Red One at a work experience placement who aside from holding down a job, was also putting on raves in London. He invited us down to this party called Imagination in Bishopsgate, and on the first night we piled up there, I just found myself gravitating towards the decks. There was this DJ called Just Jones playing and watching him, seeing how the tunes dropped and the relationship with the crowd as they reacted to his mixing was my first real interaction and my first real glimmer of understanding of the possibilities of DJing and I knew from that point onwards what I wanted to be doing with my life.

Your first release, the Sour Mash EP was bursting with instant classics. Did you have any idea of just how successful it was going to be and just how quickly you’d be breaking the scene?

Well the first release was actually Desired State – an old hardcore record, though Sour Mash was the first EP that went out on RAM, and as far as how it went down, unexpected doesn’t even begin to cover it! That EP took me forever to write, not least because it was all done on old equipment that you had to record down to a sixteen track tape machine, and the whole process was just so long winded. I guess that the integration from that record summed up what I was feeling at the end of my school days – I mean I was 15 or 16 when I was writing it and all the samples were from old TDK 90 tapes that I’d recorded off the original pirates like Sunrise and Centreforce, so they all sound gritty and seriously low quality, especially to today’s ear, but as the first RAM release, it really did set the ball rolling and absolutely bolstered my dedication and my confidence to pursue what was both a hobby and a career at the time. That was the thing, it wasn’t that serious when those tunes came out, but the success of the EP galvanised me into moving out of the hobby zone and into the realisation that I really could make music my life.

So you’re still really young, but how aware were you of being swept up in something far bigger than just the music?

Luckily, I had an older sister who had been going out for quite a while already, and she had been to all the original raves at the end of the 80’s – Sunrise, Fantazia – the real genesis of the rave scene that had been springing up in the UK. I began grasping the extent of the movement through her, and apart from turning me onto pirate radio, she took me to my first rave – an illegal party in Essex when I was 13 – bit naughty really, but it was an all nighter and I’m stood there in the thick of it all with my sister and my mate just having my mind blown. It was without a shadow of a doubt, the most amazing night out ever, and that was it for me – all I wanted was to get carried away by it all. The record shops were also a major focus of the scene back then, the epicentre of the community, and they’re sorely missed today in my mind. We’d all meet up at Boogie Times in Romford at weekends, and I’d be shooting down there after school, waiting on the latest white label to come in, while people flooded in and out buying their rave tickets, grabbing up flyers, buying t shirts and record bags – you name it. There were literally hundreds of people through the doors at the weekend, and when that is happening around you and there is that atmosphere of pure excitement, it does give you that spine tingling feeling of something major dropping, a real sense of an underground. And then when midnight hits and you’re out at a rave surrounded by thousands upon thousands of people, not only are you spectacularly aware of something epic going down, but you’re there and part of it.

Did you feel that social barriers were being broken down?

Social barriers have always been broken down by music and our scene was definitely a massive catalyst for tearing down our generation’s social and cultural differences and building a wider unity. On a personal level, I’ve met, and become friends with so many people that ordinarily I probably wouldn’t have just by having that common ground of music of raving and of a shared ethos , so without a doubt – they truly were.

Friday, 24 December 2010

As his extraordinarily complex pieces burst and ripple with texture, tortured shape, organic brilliance and an intangible bridge between the sublimely spiritual and 2000 AD on acid, Solo One is busy building extraordinarily strong graff in the community relations. Having taken over the ball court of the Stockwell Park Estate and lovingly sprayed and curated it into a glorious urban gallery a million miles away from the soulless glitz of the commercial launch, he is infusing graffiti directly into the heart of the community consciousness where it belongs, through inclusion, open hearted passion and strict quality control. His work is a phantasmagoric trip into the world of controlled chaos as patterns writhe through space and whistle into an explosion of spiraling visual mayhem. Thoughtful, driven and insightful, we had a word...

We know your a big comic book and cartoon fan, so how do you think the graphic novels of today compare with graphic novels of the 1980s?

I don't really read comics now but I was really inspired by 2000ad, Epic illustrated and various comics from the eighties. I used to like The Independent newspapers political artist, and the bog-side artists were a huge inspiration on me and all the political murals in Northern Ireland.

You started painting in 1987, roughly the same period that spurned the Acid House movement. Did you go down the hip hop path or were you a House head?

I was into all music. I ran a radio station from 92 till 97 so used to like the majority of stuff British artists were putting out. The station was called Mix FM, you can see it on www.piratearchive.net . I had no time to rave, the radio was a busy operation. I used to love underground music, mainly hip hop as I found the Acid house thing full of drug addicts. Some raves were about as entertaining as watching a hamster go round a wheel.

Where were you painting in the late 1980s and who with?

I used to paint with Alert, Crase, Pulse and Vop crew in London. Anything that came out at night I would paint with.

We heard you were run out of your home town Hinckley by police due to your nocturnal painting habits?

Sometimes you can become way too popular for your own good. Didn't have too much of a Police problem as lets face it if you get arrested there's somewhere to sleep. You got a choice of breakfasts at Hinckley, I was always a Continental guy.

Tell us how you became known as The Sticker King of London.

I wanted to do a art project where you take a functional item and change it into something else and make it popular. The aim of the sticker project was to make it popular and force the Post Office to withdraw them. I succeeded there after putting about a million up over 4 years.Getting up is the esscence of graffiti and you should experiment with differant concepts. I was featured in a book on crime called ' Cultural Criminology Unleashed' by Jeff Ferrell on glasshouse press. That was a academic study on crime and I made it. The art project finished as I wanted to get back into painting.

Wednesday, 22 December 2010

Nato, Allied Forces & Iraqi Law Enforcement Agencies were last night on the hunt for London graffiti writers Drax and Robbo. The writers were last seen tagging this wall in enemy territory and photographed by an 'enemy of the state'. A friend of a friend of the writers, another anonymous graffiti writer told us 'Drax and Robbo wanted to take it to the next level. They been painting for 25 years and really needed another challenge to end all challenges. Especially Robbo he's a family man, been out the loop for a few years. Well at least till Banksy buffed that classic piece in Camden, brought old Robbo out of retirement'.

Another anonymous graffiti artist said 'they got the paint, uniforms and weapons from another Iraqi graffiti writer they met on the internet. He did some commissions for American soldiers and got the kit from them.' The Iraqi graffiti artist who at present appears to have kept his name from the media but still has managed to broadcast messages over the internet urging 'graffiti writers from around the world come to Iraq. We have lots of paint and hundreds of very high profile blank canvases. We can get you in and out without security hazards. We writers in Iraq respect all writers, but please, we guarantee unique experience, everybody gets to go home'

Nato Forces are on high alert and publicly announced 'they cannot guarantee the safety of vandals wishing to enter Iraq and vandalise property'. A high ranking official said 'Anyone acting suspicious in the enemy zones will be shot on sight and individuals choosing to wear combat fatigues risk arrest and imprisonment'.

Graffiti message forums around the globe have been buzzing with the news. It's been said that over 250 graffiti writers are currently on route to Iraq. Governments on all boarders are urging the writers to stay away from the war zones but the writers themselves argue that 'if Drax and Robbo can get away it we're gonna try our luck. We're not traitors its about getting your name up in a high profile spot. Its always been about that'.

Friday, 17 December 2010

You've been an active street artist since 2004, tell us a little about your first pieces...
JERM stenciled onto a Purolator sticker I stole from work was first, the next day at work I called in a fake flood to Purolator and they replaced dozens and dozens of rolls of stickers, and it began. I stuck one to the next and began stenciling one-liners that were usually anti-capitalist or humorous in nature. The early pieces were a mock advertising campaign merging the techniques of graf writing, street art and advertising my thoughts.

What made you decide on the stencil message format?

For decades now graffiti has been an evolution of letter styles, growing evermore complex and thus less accessible to the public at large. I came to the conclusion that style and any creative aesthetic needed to be removed from the equation as I wanted my statements and poems to be accessible to all ages and demographics, not just the graf and street art community. I chose store bought stencil letters as my weapon of choice so that the words themselves would take center stage. The stencil letters provide familiarity and own a certain authority as they blend well with the other texts that communicate with us in public spaces. I find that by using the stencil letters as opposed to a tag style, my work simultaneously stands out and hides in plain sight.

Did you consciously decide on the paste up format or were you minimising future court appearances?

I started with markers and spray cans and was uncomfortable with the amount of physical and financial damage I was doing to my community as well as the risk involved. Within months I progressed to paper and paste and never looked back. Pasting paper, I realized quickly is much more tolerated and respected by Vancouverites and Vancouver authorities. Getting the vibe now that anything goes in Toronto. I still rock of some wack throwies and tags here and then but the pasted paper is my primary medium.

What motivates the messages you create?

Everything. It's innate, living inside me. It just has to come out.How often are you out pasting?

As often as I can, day and night, I’m a wanderer. I always have a pocket full of stickers and usually carry my whole kit. Between 24 and 30 hours a week at least I’m out here hitting. For years there was no break, we just kept going and going, but lately there have been some ebbs and flows that allow me to come down and experience other parts of life again. I'm a street art addict, I guess. I'll never be abstinent but I'm recognizing that I can't stay high all the time either.

Do you fear arrest and have you ever been arrested on the job?

I just do it like I'm supposed to be doing it and no one seems bothered. I don't fear arrest because I use a cellulose paste which is water soluble and does not do any damage to the structures my work is adhered to. I've had my fair share of chases and bad scenes but that's usually when I'm bottle half empty kinda drunk. For the most part I'm confident that my techniques are law abiding and therefore I have no worries.

I think some of it is in my blood. My granddad faked his birth certificate at 14 and joined the paratroopers in World War 2. He was a fighting man. My dad is also a tough guy and used to study kung fu. It did also take time to come out. In the early days training was so mentally tough that my coach Erik Paulson would beat me down until I cried. Each time I would say to myself I wasn't coming back the next day but I did. I didn't want to be a quitter.

What martial arts do you practice?

I study various elements of MMA. Kickboxing, Wrestling and JiuJitsu but MMA has almost become an art in itself now. The key is practicing how the arts transition together.

You won the welterweight title on Gladiator Challenge and got selected for the Ultimate Fighter,
what did it mean to you on a personal level when hearing of your selection?

I almost couldn't believe it. For years I dreamed of being in the UFC but there was always part of me that doubted it would happen.

Have you always been so mild mannered or is is something that came with learning martial arts?

My parents say then when I was young I was wild. As young as three they said when their policeman friend came over I would spit on him and kick him in the shins. Martial arts certainly gave me some discipline.

Your American opponent on the Ultimate Fighter final showed a complete lack of respect for your skills during the TV show. We're sure the whole of England was hoping you knocked him out but how did it feel to completely embarrass him?

It was great to beat Demarques so convincingly. That fight is definitely the highlight of my career.

I was thinking about it for years before I hit the streets. A combination of factors in my life all happened at once,freeing me and my mind to go and pursue happiness.That journey lead me onto the streets to paint .I practiced at home first making small stencils turning them into artwork for my walls .When I felt the time was right to go paint the streets I went for it and have never looked back.It's a way of life.

What made you choose the stencil format?

Because it allows me to produce the amount of detail I'm trying to achieve, being able to spray quickly on the streets is essential if your not into getting caught.I was also drawn towards the dedication and determination you need for such a craft.I love the whole process from start to finish.

Do you think stencil art gets the credit it deserves from the wider community?

I really think it does.

How responsive are Iocal people to your art?

Local people have been great. Ireland is bursting with creatives who appreciate street art for what it is, art.

Have you been arrested on the job?

No, I've never been arrested on the job but I've had some really close calls.So,I hope I'm not tempting fate by answering this one.I've been very lucky so far.

Do you do many collaborations or prefer working alone?

I'm self taught but to be honest I'm always learning.I don't think you can ever stop learning. I have to say though, it's easy teaching yourself something you love.

How popular is street art today in Ireland?

This is not a fame game for me . If the media is writing about street art in a positive way ,then great but I have no interest in having my face in the lights.

You may know the face, but not the name. He’s one of those actors whose been around for many years and has played many varied roles in Television and Cinema. Though staying out of the mainstream media and choosing not to court the press as so many actors have chosen to, he still manages to appear in some of the biggest grossing movies for some years, in memorable performances in such films as Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, and more recently in the bloodthirsty symbolism laden Hollywood Blockbuster; 300 where he played the traitorous hunchback; Ephialtes (Eff-e-al-tees) he was completely unrecognisable under full body prosthetics. So how does someone like Tiernan manage to sustain a career without being recognised?

WA: When was it we first met again?

AT: Erm, I met you round the Mellow Mix, the rehearsal studio off Stoke Newington Road, for those that don’t know.

WA: That’s right. Hackney has always been a hotbed of creative talent and a host of current TV / film stars were squatting in the Borough during the 1980's. What brought you to the Borough?

AT: The 22 Bus.

WA: But you were squatting too? Right?

AT: Yes, those were the days! I’d met John Lydon (Johnny Rotten) after a PiL gig and he told me to move to London. I’d read about squatting during the Punk era and I knew bands like The Clash and the Pistols had all squatted, so it wasn’t such a taboo as it is now. When I was at Drama Centre things got pretty tight and I ended up homeless, so a few of us found this house in Hackney, it was a run down Council property and had a sitting tenant, this old Jamaican lady called Mrs. Stewart and she let us in and it went on from there, I thought I was only going to be in there a couple of weeks, but I ended up squatting there from the 80’s right through into the late 90’s it saw me through the rest of Drama school and also enabled me to make a lot of choices in my work, I turned down some great stuff, but money wasn’t the objective, I was happy where I was and we were all doing our own thing.

I should write a book about it one day, the tales that house could tell about the people who frequented it along the years. People would turn up out of the blue and it had a number of movie star visitors stay there. It was also a place where Actors who had just broken up with girl/boyfriends would turn up to stay and tell us all their woes. Sometimes it was a bit like “Withnail and I.” It’s crazy how the area has changed so much since then, but I think the creativity still lives on.

The thing about where I lived, was because I was there for such a long period of time, it wasn’t what you’d imagine a squat to look like, we were homeless and it became a home and we kept everything in good repair. Unfortunately, it all came to an end when one of the later residents decided to get greedy and do a deal with the council and got developers to buy it, so they could all make some money. Such is life eh?WA: You were brought up on a council estate in a tough part of the world, what made you choose acting?

AT: I think when you live in those kinds of areas you learn how to act, because you can turn a corner on an estate at any given time and bump into one of the many local bullies and if you can’t fight, you have to be able to get yourself out of that situation and that’s when the acting comes into play. (If you want to use that analogy) But everyone has an action to play in everyday life to get what they want.

WA: You've played a hard man in many movies, how did playing Ephialtes in the film 300 feel for you as a character?

AT: I have never actually played a hard man, even though people think that those are the characters I play. I play interesting people with strange traits and faults. I have played people with mental problems and sometimes my employers and fellow cast members think I’m like that for real. I was even given a Disabled person’s suite at a hotel I was staying in once because they’d heard I was the Hunchback in 300. Ephialtes was probably the hardest person I’ve ever played, if you want to use that tag. A lot of people with disabilities are really “hard”, much harder in fact than a lot of these movie gangsters, because they really have something to fight for.

The thing about being a character actor is that people recognize you for the roles that they remember most, such as the stuttering psychopath in Cracker, but because you’re not the hero a lot of the time they don’t know your actual name, so they see you in the street and don’t quite know where they’ve seen you before. Or if you’re a copper, you seem to think that I was on your wanted list that morning, believe me that has happened on more than one occasion.

Thursday, 16 December 2010

Carving an electric groove through the snow as we hit radical imagination's flow - from the deep soul ride to the world outside LSD Issue 6... Stand and Deliver is ripping your neural networks a searing new synthesis. From the giants of underground dance to visual poetry's seductive glance, from the corporate sly hijack to the spray soaked funk attack, LSD 6 is out now, ramping up the pressure, piling on the heat and lifting you clean off your feet. Cascading with sizzling content - this is one virus your hard drive is begging for loud and proud... Let's Go...

Monday, 13 December 2010

The crew at VeryDemotivational.com have been really busy designing there posters and postcards for the general public. We've posted a few that caught our eye... If you to see more than visit their website HERE

Subscribe 2 Magazine (FREE)

LSD Magazine

The magazine will be bringing the concepts and currents behind the art alive, reflecting and helping to generate the creativity so vibrant in our streets today. Intuition and insight served up like you never thought of it but always knew it. Our culture crystallised online with contributions from writers, street artists, poets, DJ's, urban philosophers, producers, the odd visionary genius and all round geezas..... FREE!

The magazine features completely different content than this blog so be sure to read the magazine and help spread the positive vibrations...